Juvenescence for the Brain

I just re-noticed the Google Buzz feature while checking my GMail today, and started thinking a bit about Buzz and why Google decided to create it.

Obviously, it’s another attempt by Google to keep our digital lives centered on their website. For better or worse, it’s clear that their strategy revolves around providing services that behoove us to cooperate in this mission. They gave us GMail in order to move all of our communications onto their playing field. Google Docs pulled users from MS Office, and gathered yet more of our information into their massive data-crunching machine. Like it or not, most internet users nowadays are playing directly into Google’s hands!

That said, I’m not like those folks out there who paint this as a necessarily “evil” thing. Certain segments of the population find their reliance on Google for everyday browsing (and thereby, Google’s near-universal knowledge of their online activities) deeply troubling. On the contrary, I think it’s a natural part of our increasingly interconnected digital existence.

Certain segments of the population find Google’s near-universal knowledge deeply troubling. On the contrary, I think it’s a natural part of our increasingly interconnected digital existence.

Google’s stated mission is to “organize the world’s information”. Clearly, they can do a better job at this when they have more of our information to work with. Some of the features in their search engine are light-years ahead of the competition, and make it seem as if their algorithm is somehow reading our minds. They could not achieve this power without the billions of daily searches that give them the material with which to further refine their search algorithm. Essentially, the more we use Google, the more powerful it grows!

However, back to Google Buzz. It’s essentially a social network built on top of GMail, providing functionality similar to Twitter (or perhaps more accurately, Facebook’s news feed). Many of my friends do, in fact, use it – though perhaps not with the same frequency as they might use Facebook. You can make posts, with or without rich media embedded, and comment/like your contacts’ posts. It feels very Facebook-y, although it doesn’t seem to connect you into the wider world of other peoples’ friends as much as other social networks do.

I think it’s a cool idea, but I’m not exactly sure how it’s going to play into their strategy that I earlier mentioned.

See, Google Docs pulled me away from MS Office. With Docs, I can keep all of my documents in “the cloud” where they’re accessible anywhere. I can collaborate in real-time with other people on word documents, spreadsheets, and presentations (invaluable for group projects). It provided a slew of tangible reasons to cease my current behavior and reorient it towards Google. Google Buzz, though? Somehow I don’t see it pulling me, or any of my friends, away from Facebook and Twitter.

If I were Google… who knows? I might still have created Google Buzz out of principle. However, I don’t think it will be much more than that – “buzz” – after a few more months have gone by.

In the big picture, I fully support what Google is doing to make our digital lives easier. Some may balk at the thought of some faceless behemoth gathering and scrutinizing various details of their lives – but the daily benefits I receive from using Google easily quell any misgivings I might have.

Perhaps I’m being shortsighted, and cyber-terrorists will exploit my data at some point in the future, harming me greatly. So be it! There’s not really any “safe” way to use the internet these days anyways, and Google is doing far more to improve the online experience than anyone else I can think of (perhaps besides the W3C). Even if I don’t buy into their whole “Don’t be evil” line, at least they’re not being unhelpful!

Keep it up, Google.